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English at Key Stage 3
Echoes in the Wilderness
Contemporary Irish poets
by
Gillian Goetzee
Ireland in Schools
The Warrington Project
SU23
Contents
Note for teachers - mode of teaching
Echoes in the Wilderness
Contemporary Irish poets - an anthology
Echoes in the Wilderness
Contemporary Irish poets - activity book
Echoes in the Wilderness
Contemporary Irish poets - students work
Assignment 1:
Assignment 2:
Assignment 3:
Loneliness
The House by Howard Wright
McGwinn and Son by Ted McNulty
Irish countryside
The Girl with the Keys to Pearse s Cottage by Paul Durcan
Going Home to Mayo, Winter, 1949 by Paul Durcan
The troubles
Enemy Encounter by Padraic Fiacc
The Disturbance by Tony Curtis
Note for teachers - mode of teaching
PREPARATION ACTIVITIES
This Study Unit begins with activities which enable pupils to think about the importance
of environment and culture within a poem. They inform mood and character and may
be part of the ideas being explored. Pupils should also learn that poets are created by the
environment and culture to which they belong.
The poems here arise out of the particular environment and culture of Ireland and part
of the purpose of the Unit is for pupils to confront the experience of Ireland. Therefore
the initial activities focus on developing understanding of Irish culture: the landscape,
history, social attitudes, etc.
You should teach all this preparation work to the whole class, although a lot of the
activities are then independent and could be produced in pairs or groups.
POETRY ACTIVITIES
Three discrete poems
The poetry section begins with three discrete poems and their separate sets of questions.
You may wish to teach one or all of the poems to the whole class to familiarise the pupils
with the concepts and techniques relevant to poetry and to this Unit.
For the key poetry activities and assignments the class should be divided into groups of
approximately four. These could be differentiated groups, mixed ability groups, single
gender, mixed gender and so on depending on the management demands of the class at
the time. The groupings should be the results of definite decisions.
You may wish to spend some time with the class considering the sort of group behaviour
which would encourage successful learning.
Four pairs of poems
There are also four pairs of poems in the Unit. Each pairing has tasks on the separate
poems, followed by an assignment which asks the pupils to compare the poems in some
way. Each group should choose which pair of poems to study and work through the
related tasks and the assignment together. You should visit each group for about ten
minutes at a time each lesson. You may wish to bring the whole class together to work
on planning and the use of quotation.
You may want to give the groups about eight lessons to complete the activities on two
poems, the first draft and the final draft of the assignment, and each group manage its
own time. Or you may provide more of a structure, controlling the management of time
yourself.
You may wish to introduce Key words before the poetry is studied.
The spirit of the mode of teaching is to encourage collaboration and active, independent
thinking within a rigorous structure.
DELIVERING THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM
Echoes in the Wilderness includes poetry by major poets from different cultures and
traditions published after 1914 and delivers the National Curriculum for English at Key
Stage 3 in respect of speaking and listening, reading and writing.
Speaking and listening
The study unit provides students with opportunities for group discussion and interaction,
exploring and analysing texts.
Reading
The study unit provides students with opportunities to:
(Reading for meaning)
extract meaning beyond the literal, explaining how the choice of language and style
affects implied and explicit meaning;
understand how ideas, values and emotions are explored and portrayed;
identify the perspectives offered on individuals, community and society;
read and appreciate the scope and richness of complete poems;
(Understanding the authors craft)
understand how language is used in imaginative, original and diverse ways;
reflect on the writers presentation of ideas and issues;
understand how techniques, structures, forms and styles vary;
compare texts, looking at style, theme and language and identifying connections and
contrasts;
(Texts from other cultures and traditions)
understand the values and assumptions in the texts;
understand the significance of the subject matter and the language;
understand how familiar themes are explored in different cultural contexts.
Writing
The study unit provides students with opportunities to
analyse, review, comment;
reflect on the nature and significance of the subject matter;
form their own view, taking into account a range of evidence and opinions;
organise their ideas and information.
Students plan, draft, redraft and proofread the summative assignment, which should be
in Standard English.
English at Key Stage 3
Echoes in the Wilderness
Contemporary Irish poets - an anthology
by
Gillian Goetzee
Ireland in Schools
The Warrington Project
SU23
Contents
1.
Penance
Tony Curtis
2.
Voices
Damien Quinn
3.
9
The Dowser and the Child
Tony Curtis
11.
8
The Disturbance
Tony Curtis
10.
7
Enemy Encounter
Padraic Fiacc
9.
6
Going Home to Mayo, Winter, 1949
Paul Durcan
8.
5
The Girl with the Keys to Pearse s Cottage
Paul Durcan
7.
4
McGwinn and Son
Ted McNulty
6.
3
The House
Howard Wright
5.
2
Postcard from Fermanagh
Bill O Keefe
4.
1
10
My Father Perceived as a Vision of St Francis
Paula Meehan
11
1.
Penance
And still they live in unforgiven places,
on the sides of arthritic hills,
where low walls hide the sea and the sea
hides the dead, though the dead still whisper
in their silent graves, I m cold, I m cold.
Enough bog here to stoke the fires of Hell,
and stones so many you d think they grew
in the soil. Though nothing ever grows.
God knows there was more wood on Calvary.
This morning, on a high road beyond Cleggan,
I passed the ruins of a deserted cottage,
and a ruined cottage that looked deserted,
only a man eyed me. I asked where the road went?
To the end, he said, the end. Then shuffled off.
Echoes (Anthology), page 1
Tony Curtis
2.
Voices
Another bloody day has
passed
and it s reported
in shades of grey
much too much,
make others believe.
Yet I've got
little else
to offer
but my words:
as numerous as the dead,
too numerous to count.
The camera crews
are having a field day
filming green landscapes,
winter-dulled, windswept,
death-drabbed; and grey
unprosperous
villages where black flags
slap the gables
of the waking homes;
Bandit Country, somebody
said
as if we were captured
in celluloid
just south of the Rio
Grande.
jejune at best,
inane at worst,
conceived in the mind's
parish of lies.
Shaped by tribal traits,
stories of histories
hatching, parables and
prayers and the
knowledge of the wedge
hammered home centuries
ago by outsiders
to keep the peace,
to separate like from like,
to create separate voices
echoing in the wilderness.
Libelling us with labels or
slandering us with wordsorcery. Tit-for-tat
tragedies earn them a living
but fools can flaunt
their failings
Echoes (Anthology), page 2
Damien Quinn
3.
Postcard from Fermanagh
Chopper clatter bursting
Through the treetops
Above the chalet clearing
At eggs and bacon breakfast
The scout, nosing the forest
The gunship, a hawk shadow
Good day, sir
Do you have any identification?
In a soft lilt,
In a battledress
Later, a red Orion
Disgorges a black swat squad
Island Enniskillen
Still fortified, enchants
We are coming back here
Next year - sooner, perhaps
Where else can peace be enjoyed
So much, as on a front line?
Echoes (Anthology), page 3
Bill O'Keefe
4.
The House
My grandfather was so frail
that when bloothered
after a Saturday session
in the bookies and McConville s
I could lift him with one hand
and carry him
like a raincoat over my arm,
and just as easily hang him
against the side of the house
until I found his keys.
It s neither here nor there
why he drank.
Suffice to say when Violet died
he couldn t look
at another woman.
He d got a little house
of his own, and sat all night
footering with the coals.
In that house
he couldn t look at another bottle.
Echoes (Anthology), page 4
Howard Wright
5.
McGwinn and Son
Too many butchers
in the village
and alone in his shop
pretending to be busy
he suddenly hears
the long curse
he never knew was in him,
the throat of his own
with a shout
that goes back to the day
he put on his father s apron
and his mouth
turned into a purse.
Echoes (Anthology), page 5
Ted McNulty
6.
The Girl with the Keys to Pearse s Cottage
When I was sixteen I met a dark girl;
Her dark hair was darker because her smile was so bright;
She was the girl with the keys to Pearse s Cottage;
And her name was C it Killann.
The Cottage was built into the side of a hill;
I recall two windows and cosmic peace
Of bare brown rooms and on whitewashed walls
Photographs of the passionate pale Pearse.
I recall wet thatch and peeling jambs
and how all was best seen from below in the field;
I used to sit in the rushes with ledger-book and pencil
Compiling poems of passion for C it Killann.
Often she used to linger on the sill of a window;
Hands by her side and brown legs akimbo;
In the sun red skirt and moon-black blazer;
Looking toward our strange world wide-eyed.
Our world was strange because it had no future,
She was America-bound at Summer s end.
She had no choice but to leave her home The girl with the keys to Pearse s Cottage
O C it Killann, O C it Killann,
You have gone with your keys from your own native place.
Yet here in this dark - El Greco eyes blaze back
From your Connemara postman s daughter s proudly
mortal face.
Echoes (Anthology), page 6
Paul Durcan
7.
Going Home to Mayo, Winter, 1949
Leaving behind us the alien, foreign city of Dublin,
My father drove through the night in an old Ford Anglia,
His five-year old son in the seat beside him,
The rexine seat of red leatherette,
and a yellow moon peered in through the windscreen.
Daddy, Daddy, I cried, pass out the moon,
But no matter how hard he drove he could not pass
out the moon.
Each town we passed through was another milestone
And their names were magic passwords into eternity:
Kilcock, Kinnegad, Strokestown, Elphin,
Tarmonbarry, Tulsk, Ballayhaderreen, Ballavary;
Now we were in Mayo and the next step was Turlough,
The village of Turlough in the heartland of Mayo
and my father s mother s house, all oil lamps and women,
and my bedroom over the public bar below,
and in the morning cattle cries and cock crows:
Life s seemingly seamless garment gorgeously rent
By their screeched and bellowings. And in the evenings
I walked with my father in the high grass down by
the river.
Talking with him - an unheard of thing in the city.
But home was not home and the moon could be no more out-flanked
Than the daylight nightmare of Dublin City:
Back down along the canal we chugged into the city
and each lock gate tolled our mutual doom;
and railings and parkings and asphalt and traffic lights,
and blocks after blocks of so-called new tenements Thousands of crosses of loneliness planted
In the narrowing grave of the life of the father;
In the wide, wide cemetery of the boy s childhood.
Paul Durcan
Echoes (Anthology), page 7
8.
Enemy Encounter
Dumping (left over from the autumn)
Dead leaves, near a culvert
I come on
a British Army Soldier
with a rifle and a radio
Perched hiding. He has red hair.
He is young enough to be my weenie
-bopper daughter's boyfriend.
He is like a lonely little winter robin.
We are that close to each other, I
Can nearly hear his heart beating.
I say something bland to make him grin,
But his glass eyes look past my side
- whiskers down
the Shore Road Street.
I am an Irishman
and he is afraid
That I have come to kill him
Echoes (Anthology), page 8
Padraic Fiacc
9.
The Disturbance
A bomb shatters the silence of George Street,
sending clouds of dust down chimneys.
In seconds the dull thud dies away,
only a milk bottle rolling over the pavement
disturbs the silence with its circular sound Unshaven men in pyjamas stand like convicts
framed in the doorways of their cells,
or lean out windows like old farmers
on wooden gates, staring over concrete fields.
whose walls hold nothing in.
Women half dressed, still warm from sleep,
hold children's hands and let tired faces hang
like flowers withering after daylight or water.
While behind them kettles whistle
and toast burns under the grill.
Along another quiet road,
a man, pedalling on old bicycle,
whistles a familiar Irish air
as he creaks up a hill towards home,
the morning paper in his pocket,
secure, folded like a job well done.
Echoes (Anthology), page 9
Tony Curtis
10. The Dowser and the Child
When you were leaving
I always asked if you d
brought an umbrella;
you made me think of rain
upon the hills. All our lives
there was a steady drizzle between us;
the sound of water in the distance.
Your hands, your eyes
dowsed over me, as if you
could divine things deep within me.
It seemed to me you moved beneath
a grey cloud. I remember
even on sunny days, you wore
a great wide hat, your eyes
in darkness under the cool verandah.
Some days you were a passing shower.
Some days you were a snowflake.
Some days your tongue was a bolt
of lightning that sent me
scuttling under the kitchen table.
Hours I d sit there, listening
to the thunder of your things
rolling in the distance.
Nights when the wind blew,
I could hear it moan in your room,
creaking the bed. If I opened your door,
you blew it shut with a shout.
Once when I was lost in the forest
at the back of our house, I followed
the cold wind that led home to you.
I ran down the path to embrace you,
but you stayed distant like all my
rainbows, and told me, and told me,
and told me, not to touch your
delicate colours with mucky hands.
Echoes (Anthology), page 10
Tony Curtis
11. My Father Perceived as a Vision of St Francis
It was the piebald horse in next door s garden
frightened me out of a dream
with her dawn whinny. I was back
in the boxroom of the house,
my brother s room now,
full of ties and sweaters and secrets.
Bottles chinked on the doorstep,
the first bus pulled up to the stop.
The rest of the house slept
except for my father. I heard
him rake the ash from the grate,
plug in the kettle, hum a snatch of a tune.
Then he unlocked the back door
and stepped out into the garden.
Autumn was nearly done, the first frost
whitened the slates of the estate.
He was older than I had reckoned,
his hair completely silver,
and for the first time I saw the stoop
of his shoulder, saw that
his leg was stiff. What s he at?
So early and still stars in the west?
They came then: birds
of every size, shape, colour; they came
from the hedges and shrubs,
from eaves and garden sheds,
from the industrial estate, outlying fields;
from Dubber Cross they came
and the ditches of the North Road.
The garden was a pandemonium
when my father threw up his hands
and tossed the crumbs to the air. The sun
cleared O Reilly s chimney
and he was suddenly radiant,
a perfect vision of St Francis,
made whole, made young again,
in a Finglas garden.
Echoes (Anthology), page 11
Paula Meehan
English at Key Stage 3
Echoes in the Wilderness
Contemporary Irish poets - activity book
by
Gillian Goetzee
Ireland in Schools
The Warrington Project
SU23
Contents
PART ONE: THE IMPORTANCE OF ENVIRONMENT AND CULTURE
1.
Home and family
2
2.
Local area and community
3
3.
Ireland
4
PART TWO: TASKS ON INDIVIDUAL POEMS
1.
Penance
6
2.
Voices
7
3.
Postcard from Fermanagh
8
PART THREE: ASSIGNMENTS
Choosing your assignment
9
Assignment one
The House
McGwinn and Son
10
Assignment two
The Girl with the Key to Pearse s Cottage
Going Home to Mayo
11
Assignment three
Enemy Encounter
The Disturbance
13
Assignment four
The Dowser and the child
My Father Perceived as a Vision of St Francis
15
Part one
The importance of environment and culture
Echoes (Activities), page 1
1. Home and family
To understand and enjoy the poems in the Study Unit you need to understand what is
meant by environment and culture. Their meanings overlap.
Think of five things that could be covered by these words.
YOU are created by the environment and culture around you. Poets are created by their
environment and culture. Poets write about environment and culture, sometimes to show
us more about a character.
The first important environment and culture which influences you is your home and
family.
Write, talk or think about
your home and family environment and culture.
The following may help you:
The physical environment of a home creates a mood and atmosphere. A
clean, uncluttered room decorated in blue and white with angular, metallic
furniture gives a cool, inhuman feeling, perhaps. What is your home like?
Whose personality does it represent? Does it fit in with your personality?
Your bedroom may be a place in your home which shows your personality.
Is it lime green and orange, pink or black? Is it full of cuddly toys,
technology, football trophies or Point Horror books? Can you choose the
decoration or does your Mum or your older brother?
Your family may have a belief or attitude which is important, such as being
Catholic, Jehovah s Witnesses or Muslim, or being Labour or Manchester
United supporters, or believing in hard work or living for the moment. How
far are you influenced by any beliefs or attitudes? Do you agree or rebel?
The emotional environment of your home will affect you. Does your family
shout a lot, hug a lot, keep separate, fiercely compete ... ?
These adjectives may help: cramped, confined, empty, hectic, relaxed,
affectionate, noisy, indifferent, fearful, calm.
Echoes (Activities), page 2
2. Local area and community
The environment and culture of your local area and community also help to create YOU,
create poets and are used by poets.
Write, talk or think about images and ideas about Merseyside.
The following may help you:
How is Merseyside presented on the television?
How is the accent thought of by other people?
What is the typical scouser like?
Do you know people who think Merseyside is special?
Why is football so important?
Why do so many entertainers come from Merseyside?
What is the difference between Liverpool and the Wirral?
Do you think you belong to Merseyside?
If you do not come from Merseyside,
think about your own local environment and culture.
Echoes (Activities), page 3
3. Ireland
This Study Unit is about poetry from Ireland. The Irish environment and culture has
helped to make the poets the people they are. The environment and culture of Ireland are
important in the poems and they influence the characters in the poems.
Brainstorm images and ideas you have about Ireland
and make a display.
The following may help you:
Irish tourism advertisements
The news
Films: The Commitments , Into the West , The Crying Game
Television: Father Ted , Ballykissangel , The Ambassador
Music: The Corrs, Boyzone, Sinead O Connor
Your own visits to Ireland
Conversation with people who have visited or come from Ireland.
Echoes (Activities), page 4
Part two
Tasks on individual poems
Echoes (Activities), page 5
1. Penance
Tony Curtis
This poem is set in Connemara, a country area in The Republic of Ireland. It is
now a tourist destination, but it was a place where many people died of starvation
in the middle of the nineteenth century. The main food of many Irish people was
potatoes and when a potato disease spread through the country there was hardly
anything to eat. Some people argue that the English who ruled Ireland then could
have helped more, and perhaps the English made the famine worse than it needed
to be.
To the Irish people now the Famine is a powerful memory as so many died and so
many emigrated to escape.
The past and suffering and death are very present in the poem.
1.
What factual details about the landscape of Connemara do you find out
about?
2.
How does Curtis create a sense of the past in the first stanza?
3.
How does Curtis create a mood of suffering in the first stanza?
4.
How is the mood of suffering added to in the second stanza ?
5.
Why does Curtis decide to start a new stanza after line 9 ?
6.
What is important about the man, where he lives, what he does and what
he says?
7.
How does Curtis make a poem about lasting suffering a little bit funny?
8.
Think about the title, you may have to use a dictionary, and suggest who
Curtis feels is responsible for the suffering, for the Famine. Try to find
other clues in the poem.
How does Curtis present the landscape of Connemara
in his poem Penance ?
Use the above questions and your answers to help you.
Echoes (Activities), page 6
2. Voices
Damien Quinn
There are still terrible acts of violence happening in Ireland, although many people
are working towards peace. This poem is about the media coverage, the media
explanations and the poet s own attempts to explain the violence.
1.
What may have just happened before the beginning of the poem?
2.
How do we know this sort of thing happens all the time?
3.
What does Quinn mean when he says the day s events are reported in
shades of grey ?
4.
Why does Quinn use the particular simile as numerous as the dead in
stanza 2?
5.
Why are the camera crews having a field day ? Why might they enjoy
this particular landscape?
6.
How does Quinn s use of language change to describe the landscape in
stanzas 3 and 4?
7.
What is suggested by the label Bandit Country ? Why does this make
Quinn angry?
8.
What is the effect of alliteration in stanzas 7 and 8?
9.
Why does Quinn accuse journalists of word sorcery ?
10.
Quinn is Irish and he feels his words are those of an insider too involved
to be able to explain the violence. Think carefully and explain what he is
saying about his words, about Irish words and about the way words cause
violence:
conceived in the mind s parish of lies
shaped by tribal traits
stories of histories hatching
11.
Who does Quinn think is ultimately responsible for the suffering and
violence, who makes the words jejune and inane , who stops the Irish
from communicating with each other?
12.
What is the mood created in the last two lines?
13.
Why does Quinn set out the poem in short stanzas and short lines? Pick
out one or two examples to comment on.
How does Quinn explain the violence in Ireland?
Think about the media s presentation of events, the Irish people s use of
words and the reason for the separate voices of Irish people.
Echoes (Activities), page 7
3. Postcard from Fermanagh
Bill O Keefe
Northern Ireland is sometimes describes as an occupied country, with the presence
and the threat of an army from England. This poem contrasts the countryside with
the military menace, from the point of view of a tourist.
1.
What factual details do you learn of the landscape of Fermanagh from the
whole poem?
2.
The poem is called Postcard from Fermanagh. How does the postcard
idea affect the language of the poem? Pick one or two examples and
explain.
3.
How does the opening line surprise the reader?
4.
Why is the helicopter described as nosing the forest and compared to a
hawk shadow ?
5.
How does the soldier speak to the narrator of the poem? How does this
contrast with battle dress? Why is the uniform included only at the end of
the stanza?
6.
What effect does the verb disgorges have?
7.
Why does the narrator like holidaying in Enniskillen, a town in
Fermanagh?
8.
Do you think the people of Enniskillen like living on the frontline?
9.
Would you like to visit or live in Enniskillen?
10.
Why are the last two lines expressed as a question?
11.
Do you think the narrator is the same person as the poet?
How does O Keefe present living on the front line in Ireland?
Do you think he succeeds in making it tense?
Use the questions above and your answers to help you.
Echoes (Activities), page 8
Part three
Assignments
.
Read the eight poems left in the Anthology which are grouped in pairs.
Make a group decision on which two poems you are going to work on.
Read the poems carefully at least twice and discuss your first
impressions.
Together answer all the questions on both poems, in detail.
Use your answers to help you plan and then write the final assignment.
When you, your group and your teacher have thought about what is
successful about your assignment and about what needs improving, you
should write a final draft to be assessed.
Echoes (Activities), page 9
Assignment one
The House
Howard Wright
McGwinn and Son
Ted McNulty
The House
Howard Wright
1.
Who is telling the story?
Why is this important ?
2.
How does Howard Wright make it seem as if the narrator is a real person?
3.
What do you find out about the grandfather s culture and lifestyle?
4.
Why do you think the grandfather drinks so much?
5.
Find five ways Howard Wright makes you feet sorry for the grandfather?
6.
Is there anything else about the poem that you want to comment on?
7.
Why is the poem called The House ?
McGwinn and Son
Ted McNully
1.
Why does the man have to pretend to be busy in the shop?
2.
What do you learn of the man s environment and lifestyle?
3.
How did the man feet when he became a butcher?
4.
Why do you think the man became a butcher?
5.
How did becoming a butcher change the man?
6.
What has reminded the man of the day he became butcher?
7.
Find at least three ways that Ted McNulty makes you feel sorry for the man?
8.
Why is the poem called McGwinn and Son ?
Both poems are about lonely people.
Explain how the people are lonely.
How does each poet present the lonely person?
Which poem makes you feel the most sympathy for the lonely person?
Echoes (Activities), page 10
Assignment two
The Girl with the Keys to Pearse s Cottage
Paul Durcan
Going Home to Mayo, Winter, 1949
Paul Durcan
The Girl with the Keys to Pearse s Cottage
Paul Durcan
Pearse was a poet, interested in Irish tradition and in education. He was also a fighter
for Irish independence. He was executed in 1916 and was seen as a martyr.
1.
Why is it important that the narrator is sixteen?
2.
Why is it important that the setting is a cottage which belonged to Pearse?
3.
Why is it important that C it Killan is linked to the cottage?
4.
How is the atmosphere of country life created in Stanza 2?
5.
How is this atmosphere changed by the first two lines of Stanza 3?
6.
How does Durcan show what was attractive about C it Killan?
7.
Why is C it Killan leaving Ireland?
8.
How does Durcan make this sad?
9.
Find out who El Greco was and explain why Durcan describes C it Killan s eyes
as El Greco eyes ?
10.
How is C it Killan still there in the dark at the end of the poem?
11.
What difference does it make that the poem is about a man thinking about a past
moment?
12.
Is there anything else about the poem that you would like to comment on?
Echoes (Activities), page 11
Going Home to Mayo, Winter, 1949
Paul Durcan
1.
Who is telling the story?
Why is this important?
2.
What did the child feel about Dublin?
3.
How does Durcan make the situation convincing and real at first?
4.
Why does Durcan include all the place names, the proper nouns?
5.
How does Durcan show Irish country life in 1949?
6.
What is Durcan referring to when he mentions Life s seemingly seamless
garment... ? You may have to look this up in a dictionary of quotations.
7.
How is the child s relationship with his father different in the countryside?
8.
What do you think But home was not home... may mean?
9.
Explain five ways that Durcan makes Dublin seem a daylight nightmare .
10.
What difference does it make that the poem is about a man thinking about a past
moment?
11.
Is there anything else about the poem that you would like to comment on?
Both poems are about the world of the Irish country side which has
disappeared.
Explain what the world of the country side is like in each poem.
What and/or who symbolises the country side world in each poem?
How may the worlds be compared?
How is the loss of the country side presented?
Which poem makes you feel the loss the most?
Echoes (Activities), page 12
Assignment three
Enemy Encounter
The Disturbance
Padraic Fiacc
Tony Curtis
Enemy Encounter
Padraic Fiacc
1.
What is a culvert?
2.
What sort of person is the narrator?
3.
How is the atmosphere created in the first stanza?
4.
Why is there a break in the sentence between Stanza 1 and Stanza 2?
5.
How do we know what the narrator s attitude to the soldier is?
6.
What makes the narrator compare the soldier to a robin?
7.
How does the narrator know that the soldier is afraid of him?
Is the soldier right to be so afraid?
8.
Is the narrator directly involved in the events of the poem?
How does this change the poem?
9.
Is the poem about individuals or about people in general?
How does this change the poem?
10.
Is there anything else about the poem that you would like to comment on?
Echoes (Activities), page 13
The Disturbance
Tony Curtis
1.
How does the opening line try to surprise the reader?
2.
How does the second fine contrast with the first?
3.
What would happen on your street it a bomb went off?
4.
How does this compare with what happens on George Street?
5.
Give at least two reasons why the men are compared to convicts.
6.
Why does Curtis choose to compare the men to old farmers?
7.
Why does Curtis choose to compare the women to withered flowers?
8.
How do you know who off set the bomb?
9.
Is this how you would expect someone to react if they had just set off a bomb
successfully?
10.
Is the narrator directly involved in the events of the poem?
How does this change the poem?
11.
Is this poem about individuals or people in Northern Ireland in general?
How does this change the poem?
12.
Is there anything else about the poem that you would like to comment on?
Both poems are about Northern Ireland.
What is each poem saying about the experience of living through the
troubles in Northern Ireland?
How do the two poets present their ideas?
Which poem do you like the best and why?
Echoes (Activities), page 14
Assignment four
The Dowser and the Child
Tony Curtis
My Father Perceived as a Vision of St Francis
Pauline Meehan
The Dowser and the Child
Tony Curtis
1.
Find out what is a dowser?
2.
What mood is created by rain upon the hills ?
What does this tell you about the way the narrator feels about his mother?
3.
Explain what Stanza 2 shows about the narrator s relationship with his mother.
4.
How does Stanza 3 link with you made me think of rain upon the hills ?
5.
What would it be like to be the child of the mother shown in Stanza 4?
6.
What is the mother compared to in Stanza 5?
How would this affect her child?
7.
What does the child in the poem feel about his mother in Stanza 6?
8.
What does the narrator feet about his mother now that he is an adult?
How does Curtis show this?
9.
To whom is the narrator speaking?
How does this change the poem?
10.
What is main imagery of the poem?
11.
Is there anything else about the poem that you would like to comment on?
Echoes (Activities), page 15
My Father Perceived as a Vision of St Francis
Paula Meehan
1.
Who is St. Francis and for what is he particularly famous?
2.
How is the opening line surprising?
3.
Why do you think the narrator is in her brother s bedroom?
Try to explain the circumstances.
4.
How are sounds important in Stanza 1?
What does the listening show you about the narrator and her feelings?
5.
Why does Meehan choose to set the poem in Autumn?
6.
What does the narrator realise about her father in Stanza 2?
7.
How does What s he at? have an impact?
8.
How is the atmosphere created in the last line of Stanza 2?
9.
How does Meehan make you understand that there were an enormous number of
birds?
10.
How does the narrator show what she feels about her father towards the end of the
poem?
11.
How does Meehan create a definite sense of place?
Why do you think she does this?
12.
Find five line endings and/or beginnings that are important.
Explain why they are important.
13.
What is the main imagery in the poem?
14.
Is there anything else about the poem which you would like to comment on?
Both poems are about Northern Ireland.
What is each poem saying about the experience of living through the
troubles in Northern Ireland?
How do the two poets present their ideas?
Which poem do you like the better and why?
Echoes (Activities), page 16